A University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences faculty member has been chosen to lead a statewide organization dedicated to improving the treatment of infectious diseases.
Dr. Joel Kammeyer, infectious disease specialist and assistant professor of medicine, was installed as president of the Infectious Diseases Society of Ohio at the group’s annual spring meeting last month.
Kammeyer
Kammeyer, who had been president-elect since 2020, will serve a two-year term representing the state’s approximately 350 infectious disease physicians, as well as scientists and other health professionals.
The society’s mission is to foster an engaged community of infectious disease specialists, providing a platform to present and review cutting-edge research and share key information with policymakers and the public.
Because of the burden COVID-19 placed on hospitals and infectious disease physicians, Kammeyer said the group’s advocacy work has taken a backseat to patient care for much of the pandemic.
Going forward, however, Kammeyer hopes to revitalize the society’s public-facing efforts.
“I think there’s really a need for us as infectious disease specialists to be speaking with one voice on important issues within our field,” he said. “We saw that on vaccines, but there are more opportunities for us to get our messages and expertise out in a way that can influence public policy and improve the care and prevention of infectious diseases.”
Though COVID-19 has held the attention of both healthcare providers and the general public recently, Kammeyer said the society’s focus is much broader than one single pathogen.
“Emerging infectious diseases are a very real concern. We can look back to anthrax, West Nile, H1N1 and Zika as examples from the recent past. Now there’s a good deal of focus on the monkeypox outbreak, which has infected more than 1,000 people worldwide,” Kammeyer said. “One of our functions is to be sure there’s early and clear communication on the clinical features of any emergent disease.”
Kammeyer joined the full-time faculty at UToledo in 2017 after serving for several years as a volunteer clinical professor. He earned his doctor of medicine at Ohio State University and completed residency at Case Western Reserve University – MetroHealth Medical Center and a fellowship at the University of North Carolina. He also holds a master’s in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health.
